Tag: fremantle workers club

LOCAL developer Australian Development Capital is taking on one of the industry’s biggest challenges – redeveloping a historically significant property in Fremantle’s West End.

ADC, which delivered West Perth’s Sage Hotel last year and is midway through a $25 million apartment project in Cottesloe, has acquired the historic Fremantle Workers’ Social and Leisure Club and is planning a $16 million, 22-apartment development.

Built in the 1950s, the club is located on Henry Street in the heart of Fremantle’s historic West End, the entirety of which was added to the State Register of Heritage Places last week.

ADC executive director Adam Zorzi said the developer was mindful of the precinct’s heritage in developing the project’s design.

“We worked with the council and the JDAP on a solution whereby we retained the façade of the building to reflect the heritage significance of its previous use,” Mr Zorzi told Business News.

“When you’re in a heritage precinct like that, you’ve got to be sympathetic to the heritage precinct, but you can’t try and replicate it.

“Any heritage expert will tell you that you can’t replicate those old buildings, we just don’t have access to the trades to get the quality of the finishes, and they never look right.

“That’s why contrast is usually the best way to deal with heritage; but at the same time the building reads quite softly.”

Mr Zorzi said a soft launch of the apartments had already resulted in eight of the 22 dwellings on offer being sold, with very little marketing taking place.

He said the project’s unique location had insulated it from the challenges present in Perth’s patchy apartments market.

“There are very few opportunities to get into that West End in Fremantle and that’s what appealed to us,” Mr Zorzi said.

“I love that precinct; if I could find another two or three sites down there I’d be on to them, because it’s one of the very few places in Perth where you can live a truly cosmopolitan lifestyle.

“You can walk out of your door and walk to 15 or 20-plus restaurants and bars within a few hundred metres, shops, supermarkets, the beach, train station, parks, fishing boat harbour, it’s all within walking distance.

“One of the problems that we’ve seen with our planning in Perth is a lot of the density is being built in the places where there isn’t a lot of amenity, rather than focusing on getting density where there is amenity.

“I think the market is recognising the opportunity, hence the amount of interest we’ve had on the pre-sales.”

(This present proposed building is the result of a challenge by the Fremantle Society over excessive height. The original five stories would have been disproportionate for the the West End. Public reaction to the design is another matter).